As most of you probably know by now, I am brand new at fly fishing and I can't wait to get started. I have been reading and practicing everyday, well I've been reading everyday. By the time I get home from work, it is already dark, so I have been practicing casting on weekends. Anyway, I guess I sort of got to reminiscing about fishing with my Dad as a kid. (just with spinning reel, he has never fly fished either) We had numerous fishing trips and at least 3 that really stand out as being pretty funny. At least they are to us, we still talk about them from time to time. I can tell 2 of them, the third would be self incriminating. I thought I would tell one, and see if any of the rest of you would like too.

I was about 12, when we made a trip to a local watershed. We took our fiberglass canoe. I had rode in one at 4-H camp and loved it. Dad found one for sale cheap and bought it, in fact we still have it. (can't wait to try it flyfishing, which brings me to alot more questions, but I'll hold off on those for now.) This is the only funny canoe story we have, where we were both still dry at the end of it. We had been fishing for maybe an hour or so, when it happened. Dad hung a big one, or so I thought.

As I don't know who will be reading this, I'll stop here and explain, that here in this part of the country we have what we call snapping turtles. Not the giant alligator snappers, like in florida, these are a smaller size. In fact I don't think I have ever seen one around here more than a foot or so across. Except for this one. Now I realize time has a way of changing facts in our minds, but this snapper was at least 2 ft across. It came to the top of the water, and it was mad. Dad had hooked it some how right in the side of the shell. Right where the top meets the bottom part of the turtle. We still don't know how it got hooked like that.

Now normally when confronted with a snapping turtle like this, you would cut the line. After all, nearly every one wants to end a fishing trip with the same number of fingers they started with. But that would be to easy for my Dad, besides he wanted his lure back. I don't recall what the lure was, but as we mostly fished with swirl tailed jigs like the ones you buy at Wal-Mart, you know about a dozen for a dollar, and I am sure he didn't have more than a nickel in it. Certaintly nothing worth losing a finger over. So Dad grabs the line and gives the snapper a mighty bounce up and down. The turtle came up out of the water, and the hook came off.

Now, I don't know how many of you have ever rode in a canoe. They are a tremendous amount of fun, and something I truly enjoy doing. However, if there is one drawback to a canoe, it has to be the lack of room. A 2 man canoe, at least the one we have, doesn't leave alot of space between the back and front man. Especially, and I can't emphasize this enough, if you add in a very ticked off snapping turtle, which of course is right where he landed. By this time it had grown to roughly the size of a Volkswagen in my eye. It's head was out, it's mouth was open and it was looking right at me. Now I am not a professional writer, as I am sure you can tell, but perhaps I should have done mentioned, we were 50 ft or so from the bank, and I couldn't swim a lick. All this went through my mind in an instant and I immediately decided I was going to die fighting.

Sitting at the front of a canoe, facing certain death (or so I thought) I raised my paddle over my head to defend myself against the deadliest foe I had ever seen. It is a testament to the kind of man my Dad is and how he raised me, that when he yelled, "Don't hit it!" I stopped. I hope I can raise my own son to listen to his Dad that well. It was not the only time I had seen or heard my Dad do something that I thought was crazy, but I knew better than not to obey him. He then quickly explained, "You'll knock a hole in the boat." It seems he didn't think the fiberglass bottom of our canoe was going to hold up to the mighty blow I was about to give that turtle. (and he was right)

It didn't take long for the "hole in the boat." statement to register, and quickly weigh out as a much worse predicament than the one we were already in. I don't really know how to explain this by writing, but my Dad took his paddle and I used mine and we sort of "chop sticked" the turtle out of the canoe. The moment the turtle hit the water, he shrunk to about 10 inches across. Amazing what a little distance will do.

After we settled down, Dad quickly cast his 5 cent lure into a tree on the far bank. Which, as far as I know, is where it hangs to this day. It may not be funny to read or hear, maybe you just had to be there, but that is my story and I am sticking to it. I hope you enjoyed reading it, as much as I do telling it. Now, tell me yours...